What Floats to the Top
by hollywooddove
Summary: A couple discover something unusual outside their home and must decide how to play their luck.
1. Chapter 1

Borland Johnson committed suicide in small prison cell on the evening of July the ninth in nineteen and forty two. He was known to be a hard working man for all of his life, and a fair man, though not a very lucky man. Until, like many others in the small town, construction of the dam had begun. What was known to the locals as a 'stack of cash so high it could hit the moon' was being pumped into the project in order to stop the mighty Savannah river from flooding the towns farther south in the state. Borland had gotten a job with the crew, mixing concrete mainly and whatever other orders were screamed at him, and the pay had been nice. With everything seeming to be going so well for Borland, the police were very puzzled when they arrested him for the suspicion of the disappearance of his wife Jane, who had not been found yet.

Borland had not spoken a word to the police when they came to his home and took him away. He had not reported his wife as missing, her parents had, and it appeared that Borland had been sitting in his home for a couple of days doing nothing more than staring at the walls. The entire proceedings had been a complete shock to the police who had arrested him; they had known Borland for many years, and nothing about it added up.

Divers searched the water which had been backing up behind the partially built dam where they had found a white sun dress and a black pair of slippers, both of which were confirmed to have belonged to Jane. The search revealed no body, and it was believed her body could have moved through the wash over the dam banks and down the Savannah, and everyone agreed Jane might wash up someplace, but chances were she would never be found.

The dam did its job after completion, and the small southern towns banking the Savannah river flooded much less frequently. The rising waters swallowed the land, and if you had owned any by the river, it was mostly gone. River people became lake people. Virtually worthless land became prime real estate. Many families flipped the land for profit, but a few held on to what was theirs.

During this current time, Erin Moore owned a small cabin built by his grandfather on the coast of the lake. The cabin had been Erin's inheritance, and he had considered it to be a very lucky day when he was at the reading of the will. He and his wife Samantha were in the kitchen of the cabin where she was cooking dinner. Erin was ranting.

"I'll tell you something else, did you know Nate Grooly now OWNS the supermarket up town?"

Samantha smiled and said, "Nate's father built that store. It was left to him."

"And that was his lucky break, Samantha. He didn't do anything to earn it. He was given his lucky break the day he was given birth to."

She said, "You don't think Nate has ever had to work there?"

Erin frowned, "That's not the point Samantha. See? I am trying to make a point here. Nate is never going to have to worry about getting a job like the rest of us. He is just lucky that way, blind luck."

"Yes, I know what you mean, Erin. But it doesn't work like that for everyone. Most people have to doing something with their lives, and then doors open up for them."

Erin pointed a finger in the air, "And, there are tons of people out there who work at something their whole life, and they never have a lucky break. I am telling you, it's all luck."

Samantha shrugged, "Okay, Erin. Did you catch anything today?"

Erin said, "Huh, what?"

"Did you catch any fish today?"

Erin raised his eyebrows, "Oh, no. No, I did not. And see, that's what I am saying. It's all just like fishing. Luck. Just pure luck."

She smiled again, "And the fact you have to place a line in the water in the first place has nothing to do with it."

Erin said, "You're just not getting it."

Samantha looked out the window and said, "I will tell you what we are both about to get. This cloud out here sure is dark, and it came out of no where. Looks like it could rain any second.."

Erin exclaimed, "Doggone it! I left the windows down in the truck."

The cabin rumbled with a loud clap of thunder. Samantha said, "You better get on out there unless you want your seats soaked."

A steady patter of rain could be heard hitting the tin roof of the cabin and Erin said, "I got to get out there."

"Where is the truck?"

He answered, "I left it down by the edge of the lake. I had no idea we were supposed to get rain today.."

Samantha winked at him, "Well, that's bad luck isn't it? Maybe watching the weather would have given you better luck."

Erin had grabbed his jacket, which was not water proof, and put it on while he said, "Don't rub it in, Samantha."

Outdoors had gotten much darker, and the rain was drumming down quite hard. Erin knew his seats were already wet, but he would still need to protect them from being water logged. Close to one hundred yards was the distance from the cabin to edge of the lake where the truck sat. The ground had become mushy and slick; Erin slid and stumbled as he ran through the down pour.

One at a time, he yanked the doors of the truck open and cranked the windows closed. He sat in the wet seat of the truck and wiped his face with his hand, peering out into the dark rain hoping it would pass over soon. It did not. Instead, it was getting harder, and he was filled with disappointment. Lightning bolted across the sky, flashing over the muddy beach, and Erin saw something in the glow. Something on the beach had shined viciously during the spark of lightning; something close to the edge of the lake. Erin pressed his face against the passenger side glass and squinted.

Whatever it was, he could slightly make out an outline, seemed to be moving. Maybe it was the flow of water washing into the lake, but he could swear the thing had twitched, maybe even flopped a bit. Lightning struck again, and the outline was much more distinct for him now, and part of it appeared to have flip skyward and then slap the mud. If it was a fish, which he suspected, it was a nice sized one.

Erin could not resist getting a better look at it. He grabbed the flashlight from the truck glove compartment and jumped out back into the rain. Shoulders raised and head slumped in the cold rain, he walked over to the thing lying on the beach and shined the light down on it.

For the most part, it was a fish the length of his arm. There was a tail covered with scales, a dorsal fin, and a set of fins on the side, but something was horribly askew. A revolting fear stunned him when he saw the lips of the fish, which obscenely resembled human lips. The slit eyes were a horrible yellow. Probably the most terrifying feature was beneath the side fin where what looked to be a small arm terminating in a webbed hand.

Erin blinked a couple of times. He was suffering from legs which would not move, though his first instinct was to run. He could not take his eyes from it.

Erin asked, "What are you?"

The mouth gasped, but said nothing, and Erin could feel his own skin crawl. The light had begun to shake in his hand, flickering its ray on the shiny scales. Erin walked to rear of the truck and looked down at his plastic cooler. It was empty save it was almost full of rain water. Heaving, he picked the heavy cooler up and walked it to the thing on the beach. Cautiously and hesitantly, he lifted the thing and placed I in the cooler. He tilted the cooler to its side and poured out most of the water, except for just enough to cover the strange animal he had found.

Erin lifted the cooler and placed it on the back of the truck. He climbed inside the cab and drove back to the cabin. The cooler gripped and weighing down on him, he bumped his hips on the back door. It opened, and Samantha was on the other side. She inquired on the cooler, "I thought you said you did not catch anything."

Erin said, "I didn't catch anything. Not any fish. But I found something?"

"What did you find?" She wrinkled her nose, "It smells terrible."

"I have no idea what it is. But it is… you have got to see it." He started into the house.

"Whoa, wait, wait," she said. "You don't want me to believe you are bringing that in"

"I have to bring it in. I want to see it in the light, and you have got to see it."

Erin stepped inside and set the cooler on the floor. Samantha looked down into it, and covered her mouth with her eyes wide with shock. "What is that Erin?"

"I don't know."

A voice spoken but not heard, the voice of Rod Serling, said, "Take one rainy night and mix it with Erin and Samantha Moore… and their strange new find. It really doesn't make much difference how you equate causality, and the same rule applies to Erin Moore. Whether you believe in circumstances of fortune or demise, eventually events transpire to be what they are, and nothing much more. Erin is about to learn the price of what he considers to be luck, and perhaps he will even reconsider how tightly fate is intertwined with one's own well thought out or reckless decisions, especially when those decisions are made on the coast of the Twilight Zone."

Continued in Chapter Two.


	2. Chapter 2

The thing in the cooler was curled on itself because the cooler was not long enough to hold it otherwise. In the light of the cabin, full light, it was much more hideous to gaze upon. The scaly skin was pink in hue, but very unsaturated. Beneath the pink a hint of a deep greenish color gave impression. As Samantha had stated, the smell was almost unbearable. She kept her elbow up high, crossing over nose.

Erin licked his lips, eyeing the thing with a frantic delight, "This could be it, Samantha. This could be what we have been waiting for."

Her voice was muffled through the back side of her elbow, "I don't know what you're talking about. You should take that thing back to the lake and dump it."

He gave her the most insulting glance, "Are you out of your mind? Do you know what this thing could do for us?"

"From the smell of it, I would say it could make us sick."

He was staring at it, "It could make us wealthy. That's what it could do. It could make us rich." Erin's fingers were ringing with anticipation, "Who knows what this is. It could be the missing link between fish and land animals. We could be the first to discover it. Or it could be a whole new species."

"Or, it could be a freak mutation, a defect which needs to die." Samantha tried to not look at it, but the extreme oddness of it was captivating. "It could also be some sort of diseased fish, toxic waste gotten to it. All the more reason to get it out of my house."

"It's not diseased."

"How do you know that?"

Erin remarked, "I can't explain. I just have a feeling, Samantha. This thing is going to change our lives. It's going to change you, and me. It's our lucky break."

Samantha asked, "How do you plan to get rich off of this ugly thing? No one is going to make you rich from some ugly retarded fish."

Erin grabbed her by the arm and said, "Samantha, if this is some kind of missing link, do you know how important that will be? Do you know how many places will want to have it. Scientist will want to study it. Museums will want it. We just have to wait for the highest bidder."

"What makes you think the government won't just come in here and take it? Especially if they think it is sick from toxic waste or something. They will take it to keep the story hush, cover their own behinds. And they will take you, and they will take me, in order to keep us hush also. Maybe even dissect us with it since we live so close the lake."

Erin said, "I won't let that happen. They will have to kill me first." Erin scratched his head and said, "You know, some fish swim far away from their homes in order to breed. Salmon swim back to one spot. Who knows, maybe there are more of these, and they have traveled a long way back to where they reproduce, and this one got trapped in the lake. Maybe they used to go freely up and down this river, from the underwater springs in the mountains all the way to the ocean."

"Don't you think some fisherman would have caught one by now?"

"Maybe they are too smart for that. Could be a smart fish."

Samantha laughed, "A smart fish. There ain't no smart fish."

Erin said, "There's a first time for everything."

The thing began to thrash violently in the cooler causing Erin to jump back some. Samantha giggled. It then stopped, and Erin cautiously came close to it again, "What's the matter in there fellow? Too cramped up?"

Samantha sat down on her knees for a closer look, and the thing shuddered briefly, and then its sickly yellow eye peered directly on her. If she didn't know any better, it was intimately engaging her with it's stare. A vertically laid eye lid blinked, reminding her of a crocodile's blink she had seen many times on the nature channels.

Erin cackled and said, "I think it likes you."

Samantha said, "At least someone around here does." The pink, humanoid looking lips began to make blubbering type movements, and she could swear she had seen small human teeth inside. She made no mention of it, and she asked, "Exactly who do you intend to tell about this thing?"

"I haven't figured that out yet. And what you said about the government, you could be right. We can't take it to the game station, they will simply claim it property of the state or something. And we can't go the police with it. They are government too. You're right, they would come for it, and us."

She asked, "So, what are you going to do?"

Erin says, "I haven't figured that out yet. You know, we could post it on social media. We could let the whole world know about it. That we, everyone knows we claim rights to it. It would be proof that we found it first."

Samantha nodded, "Yeah, yeah. That' a really bad idea."

Erin asked, "Why is that?"

"It just seems like a bad idea. Seems like you would be telling the government outright, here we are, here it is, come get us."

Erin said, "But there would be proof, a record, and it would be all over the world. They wouldn't be so bold then, I think." He pointed towards the bedroom, "Go get your cell phone."

She said, "You're not seriously going to…"

Erin's voice rose, "Just go get it, Sam. Go get the blame phone."

Samantha stood and retrieved her cell phone from the bedroom. Erin snapped a digital photo of the thing from the rainy edge of the lake. He gave the phone back to Samantha, "Now, post that on the social media."

She shrugged, "Alright, I just want to say it one more time, this is not a good idea."

"Noted."

Samantha asked, "What do you want to say about it?"

Erin asked, "What do I want to say about what?"

"You get to place a message with the photo, Erin. You can't just post the photo and expect people to know why you are doing it. What do you want me to say about it."

Erin said, "I don't know, something like, we found this strange animal on the beach. We would like anyone scientific or something to come here and take a look at it."

"That's it? That's what you want me to say?"

Erin said, "Well, to that effect. Polish it a bit."

Samantha did some typing with her thumbs, and then said, "Okay, done."

Erin thought for a moment, "Send a picture of it to Jeremy also."

"You're cousin Jeremy?"

"No, president of Russia Jeremy," said Erin sarcastically, "Of course my cousin Jeremy. He's pretty smart, he knows a lot of smart people. He might have an idea of who we need to show this thing to."

Samantha did more typing and said, "Okay, done and done. Now, could you do something for me?"

Erin said, "Yeah, sure. What?"

"At least close the lid on that ugly thing. It smells awful. I have dinner cooked, and we need to eat, and I don't think I could stomach it with that smell full blast. Besides, no telling how many germs we have let in the house as it is."

Erin laughed as he closed the lid on the cooler, "You and germs."

Samantha had set the table with her special recipe spaghetti and meat sauce. There wasn't much conversation at the table as the two ate. Rain continued to pour out doors, and at times was almost deafening on the roof. The sun had long since went down, and the night was very dark.

Erin sat back at the end of his meal and said, "Oh, I am stuffed. That was some good spaghetti."

Samantha said, "Glad you liked it. Give me a minute to clear the dishes and we can go watch some television."

She rose from her chair, and before she could begin to remove dishes from the table, her eyes went worried and loose, her mouth locked open in a large circle, and she bent forward clutching her stomach. Vomit spewed from her, splattering on the floor. Erin jumped up from chair in an attempt to avoid sprays of regurgitated food.

He exclaimed, "Geesh, Sam, you alright?"

She said, "I don't know where that came from…" and she heaved over again, vomiting. After two last heaves, she sat back down in her chair.

"Samantha?" Erin approached her and placed his hand on her forehead, "You're sort of warm. You must be getting sick."

"Getting sick?" she croaked, "I'd say I might already be."

Erin said, "Look, why don't you go wash up and head to bed. I will clean up in here."

She apologized, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make such a mess."

"Don't worry about it. Just go clean yourself and get in bed. I will come check on you when I finish cleaning in here."

She nodded and stood, weakly quivering, and made her way to the bed room. Erin looked around the kitchen and said, "What a mess."

After cleaning the kitchen, Erin went to the bedroom. He cracked the door open and whispered, "Sam?" There was no answer. He pushed the door open and stepped inside. He clicked the lamp on the bed stand by Samantha and felt her forehead as she slept. "Still kind of warm."

She opened her eyes and smiled.

Erin asked her, "Are you feeling better?"

She nodded slightly, and said, "I think I feel a little better."

"Good. I haven't heard of any viruses going around, but I guess you must have caught something just started."

Erin was beginning to walk away, and Samantha grabbed his wrist, "Erin. I don't think I am sick. I think it's that thing you brought in the house."

Erin said, "What? That's nonsense. You didn't even touch it."

"Oh, Erin, we don't know anything about it, what kind of germs it might carry. It may have poisoned me."

Erin rubbed her hand after he sat on the bed by her, "You have always been afraid of germs, Samantha. I think you have let this thing get in your head, and now you're in a panic over it. You're sick, and a little upset at the same time."

She said to him, "No, no. It's the thing. Erin, that thing has poisoned me or something. I just know it. I had a dream of it swallowing me. I've never had a nightmare like that before. You have to get rid of it," she began to tear, "You have to get rid of it. Take it away. Take it back to the lake and get rid of it."

Erin could see there would be no reasoning with her, not in the fevered state she was in, "Okay. I will get rid of it."

She smiled, "You promise?"

"Yes. Yes. I will get rid of it." Erin rubbed her forehead gently. "I will, I promise. Hey, why don't look on the social media and see what people are saying about it, just for fun." He took her phone from the bedside table and opened the social media site. "So, let's scroll it back and… ah, look, we have some responses." Erin began to silently read the messages, and as he did, his brow began to furrow with anger. "What? What do these fools know? Listen to this Samantha. 'Not even a good photoshop jub,';'fake, fake, fake,' ;'did Bigfoot catch it?';'nice picture of yo mama.'" Erin slammed the phone back from where he had taken it, "Did you hear those? Everyone is calling me a phony."

Samantha said, "What did you expect, Erin? For real. No one is going to believe it on social media. That forum is full of fake things, people expect it."

Erin growled, "Fools. They're all a bunch of fools. They'll see. Wait until I get paid for it."

Samantha said, "No. You said you were going to get rid of it."

Erin regained his composure and said, "That's right, I am. I am getting rid of it. I forgot. Just got a little angry and forgot."

He stood by the bed and released her hand, "Get some more sleep."

She smiled and said, "Okay, don't forget."

He said, "I won't forget."

Erin left the bedroom and stepped back into the atrium where the cooler sat. He rubbed his chin and mumbled, "What do they know? Bunch of fools. What do any of them know? When they see how much I get paid for this, when they see how famous I become, then they will have to take it all back."

Erin opened the coat closet and shoved the cooler inside and then closed the door again.

Continued in chapter three.


	3. Chapter 3

Perhaps when the rain stopped in the early morning before the sun had begun to rise, the silence may have been what woke Samantha. She wasn't sure. Somewhere deep inside, she was frightened when she awoke, and the end of a rain had never left her with such an emotion before in her life. It could have been a dream, and she wondered if it was so. Was there a dream? Was she running short of breath in the dream? In her mind, it seemed so, as if she had been someplace where she could not breath, and she had to wake from the dream before she suffocated, or maybe drowned. Either way, she was awake.

Erin was sleeping beside her in the bed; she had no remembrance of him coming to bed the night before. What she did know was she felt much better. The chilly fever was gone, and she had no urge to vomit. She also noticed there was no dread inside her mind. Erin had promised to get rid of the thing in the cooler from the edge of the lake, and believing he had gave her great comfort. Smiling, she gave him a light kiss on the cheek as he slept.

She was thirsty, incredibly thirsty, and this stood to reason with as much fluid she had lost the night before. She slowly swept the blanket off of her, and moved to the kitchen. The small light over the sink flickered on after she flipped the switch and she groggily filled a glass from the tap. Each swallow was more than satisfying, and she gulped quickly with a trickle spilling over the corner of her mouth. She filled the glass again, and was making large swallows once more when she heard the hollow beats. It was the bumping which reminded her of the sound of an animal, it was maybe similar to squirrels running over the roof of the cabin, but it never trailed off. It bumped, and bumped again, from one location.

In trance like motion, slowly the glass was set on the counter. She whispered, "He couldn't have." More thumping, it continued as she tracked the sound, out of the kitchen into the hall, down the hall, into the atrium. Here it was loudest. The coat closet, that's where it seemed to be coming from. She pressed her palms to the closet door . The thumping stopped. She moved her ear to the door, inch by inch, whispering as she did, "No, no no no no no."

Her ear was pressed tight, and she dared not breath or move. A wet, rapid thudding, now sounding more loudly than the thunder from the night before, sent her reeling backward in the atrium to the opposite wall. Her eyes were large saucers filled with fear. Her chest rose and fell in quick waves. She reached out and opened the coat closet and there it was: the cooler. Faster her breathing became, and she felt a buzzing dizziness in her head. "No," she whimpered.

Biting her bottom lip, she stood more erect, and with determination replacing the fear, she said, "No! I'll do it. I'll get of rid of you." She grabbed one side of the cooler and dragged it into the hallway. The thing inside was beating unceasingly now. "I don't know what you are and I don't care. You're going back in that lake."

She spun the cooler forty five degrees and began to pull it towards the front door, where she would drag it into the yard, place it on the back of the truck, and dump it over into the lake. Erin would be upset, but he would just have to get over it. She predicted he sulk for a day or so, but that was alright. And for the future, she said, "And then I am never setting foot back in that lake again."

Samantha unlocked the front door and swung it open, aware she and the thing were making enough racket to wake Erin. Speed was mattered most, she thought. Speed was more important than stealth. This thing had to go back as quickly as possible.

The light in the hallway came on and Erin's voice called out, "Samantha?"

She pulled violently on the cooler, twisting and tugging, sliding it across the floor, closer and closer to the front door. Perhaps, when if there wasn't enough time, she would dump it in the yard and stab the thing with a stick. It would be no good if it were filled with holes, "I'll kill you," she said to the thing in the box. "You need to die."

She was out the front door when she heard Erin approaching, his voice most definitely closer, "Samantha!" There would not be enough time to make it to the truck with the cooler. She flipped the lid open, and there it was. The yellow eye was staring at her again as if it never stopped, as if it had been tracking her even when the lid was closed, even when the thing was shut off in the darkness of the coat closet. Erin called out again, closer, "Samantha? What are you doing?"

She looked up and could see Erin headed to the front door. With all her might, she tossed the cooler over and dumped the thing out over the edge of the porch into the yard. She had no time to find a sharp stick to impale the thing with. It was writhing like an earth worm caught on a hot surface. She raced down the steps as Erin barreled out the front door. "Samantha! Stop!"

She raised her heel over the thing, prepared to stomp it to death. Erin grabbed her by the back of her arms as her foot went down and she struck empty mud. She kicked as though she were on a bicycle as Erin dragged her backwards and she screamed, "Kill it! It has to die! Kill it!"

Erin flung her away, but she did not fall. She caught herself with one hand, poised as a tripod, and dug off in a sprint towards the thing again. Erin stepped in between and brought a fist down to her jaw. This time she fell. Samantha laid in the mud holding her head and crying.

Erin walked to the thing, took the cooler down from the porch and set it beside the thing. He bent over and gently picked the thing up, and placed it back in the cooler. Samantha sobbed, "Erin, no. You promised me. You promised you would take it away."

"Shut up Samantha! Just shut up."

She cried, "You promised. You said you would take it away."

"I said SHUT UP!" Erin placed the cooler onto the porch. "This is my lucky break, Samantha. This is OUR lucky break. What are going to do? Ruin everything?" He walked over to her and squatted down. "You can't let something this important go, Samantha. You can't just throw it away."

Samantha looked up from the mud with a red jaw and blood oozing from her lip. Her eyes were red and filled with fury, "It's a monster, Erin! You didn't find it! It found you! You have to get rid of it."

Erin took a deep breath and tried to caress her head; she swatted his hand away, "Don't you touch me. Don't you ever touch me again."

Erin said, ever so softly, "Sam. Sam, can't you see. I am doing this for us. This is our chance to get out of our nine to five life. This is it, Sam. We will never have anything like this to happen to us again. It's a once in a life time opportunity."

Samantha glared at him angrily, "Stop the sales pitch, Erin. You aren't doing this for us. This is all for you. It's all for you." She wiped the blood from her lip as she laid in the mud, "This isn't for me."

Erin said, "It is for us, so you don't have to go work in that crummy old store anymore, and I don't have to cut trees anymore. No more long hours, clocking in and out. No more of this crappy old life."

Samantha said, "What's so bad, Erin? What's so bad about this life? We have each other. At least I thought we did. I thought we had all we needed. I thought I knew you. But I guess there always when a time when the real person comes floating to the top."

Erin shook his head and sighed, "You'll see. When I get paid for this thing, you will see. You'll be glad, then. Just wait and see, I promise."

She said, "You're promises aren't worth much, Erin."

He said, "Let me help you up."

She replied to him, "Don't touch me. I don't need your help." Bracing herself with her palms in the mud, she raised to a point, and then she moaned, "Oh, Erin."

Erin could her the distress in her voice, "What is it Samantha."

"I can't move my legs, Erin." She yelled out, distraught, "I can't move my legs. Why can't I use my legs?"

Erin felt a knot raise to his throat, "What do you mean?"

"I can't move them, Erin. I can't move them any at all. I can't strand up."

Erin wanted to touch her, but was afraid to do so now. "What happened? Did you hit your head on something?"

She sobbed, "No. I didn't hit my head on anything. I have taken worse falls than this, Erin. I don't know what it is. I don't know what happened." Then she looked up on the porch, and she could feel the unseen gaze of the thing in the cooler, "It's that thing. That thing did this to me, Erin."

Erin said, "You're talking crazy. Did you twist your back?"

Samantha slammed her fist in the mud, "It's that thing, Erin. It did this to me. It's a monster, Erin. It's not a fish. It's not a toxic mutant. It's a monster and it has me."

"That's crazy, Erin. It's just a fish. It's just some kind of fish we have never seen before. It didn't do this. You must have twisted your back, caused some kind of swelling." He spoke softly to her and did caress her hair this time, "Samantha, you fell down. You twisted something. We have to get you inside and get you to bed. You need a doctor."

Samantha thought for a moment. She could not remember twisting anything or hitting her head. The only blow she took was from Erin's fist, but she could not believe he hit her hard enough to cause paralysis below her waste. She raised and arm to him, and he lifted her from the mud, carrying her as if she were a muddy bride about to enter the threshold for the first time. He lowered her to bed and said, "I need to go call an ambulance, we have to get you to a doctor."

Erin took his arm and said, "Get rid of it, Erin. You see what it's doing to me. You see what it's doing, you have to get rid of it."

Erin nodded, "Okay, Sam. Okay. Let me call for an ambulance and then I will take it back to the lake and set it free."

"No," she said. "Kill it, Erin. You have to kill it. Then burn it. Set it on fire and burn it away."

Erin took out his cell phone and walked to the doorway of the cabin, "Okay, Sam, I will." He walked down the hallway and she could hear him say to her, "You're right, Sam. I'll kill it, burn it."

She sighed a relief with her hand across her chest. She then heard him say, "I promise." Her eyes opened, and her mouth dropped to a frown. She took her cell phone from the stand by her and began to text Jeremy, "Please come quick. Hurry. It's an emergency. Something bad here. Come quick."

Erin stepped out on the porch and placed the cell phone in his palm. He clicked it off, "She just needs some time. She has gone nuts. Her mind is playing tricks with her. I've heard of hysteria like this before. Her legs are good. She will walk again. She just needs time. If I call, and they come, they will see I hit her. I will go to jail for sure. Then they will see the thing, and they will take it from me. They will take it."

Erin slid the cooler beside the wooden bench swing hanging from chains on the porch. It had an incredible view, facing the lake. He sat down in the swing and said, "She just needs time to calm down. Then she will change her mind. She will see, when I sell it. They will all see. I'm doing this for us." His eyes grew heavy, "All of this, everything, for us." His eyes fluttered and closed, and his head rocked forward as he drifted off to sleep.

The sun had still not come up when Erin was suddenly awaken by Samantha's scream. He jumped up from the swing and ran into the cabin. He never noticed the cooler by the swing was open and empty.

Continued in chapter four.


	4. Chapter 4

"Erin, Erin… hey bud, can you hear me?"

The sun over the lake is sparkling in the mornings, especially from the cabin. The cabin set on the end of Watt's road, and that same rising sun glittered though the tree tops. Sometimes, a haze would linger over the top of the trees, making spokes of rays, and this was one of those mornings. Jeremy did not have time to notice these beauties. He had received the text message from Samantha, who had never sent a message of that type before. She told him to come quick, that things were bad. She gave no detail. Jeremy had no idea what could be happening.

He pulled up to the cabin and all seemed normal. It had been a twenty minute drive from his home, give or take a minute or two. There was a good, and hopeful chance, that whatever had troubled Samantha was over, but wouldn't she have sent a new message telling him everything was back to normal?

He parked his truck and stepped out of the door, "Erin? Samantha?" he called out. There was no answer. He left the door open and rushed up the steps and inside. There, in the living room, he found Erin.

Erin was sitting in a chair, staring blankly at the wall, drool hanging from his lip. "Erin. Erin, what's going on?" Erin did not answer, unless you could call the blank stare some sort of a response. He shook Erin's shoulders, but it made no difference. "Erin, Erin… hey bud, can you hear me?" Jeremy snapped his fingers in Erin's face. "Come on man, snap out of it. What's going on here?"

Jeremy looked around the living room and saw nothing out of place or unusual. He turned his attention back to Erin, "Erin, what's happened. You're scaring me. Where is Samantha? Erin, where is Samantha?"

A low and weak voice came from Erin, "Sam… for us. I did it… Sam. Sam."

Jeremy grabbed Erin's shoulders again and shook him, "Where is Samantha, Erin? What happened, What did you do to her?"

Erin laughed; the drool swinging from his lip.

"Samantha!" Jeremy yelled, "Samantha! Where are you?" He ran down the hall to the bedroom and knocked on the door, "Samantha! Are you in there?" There was no reply. He opened the door and was would never be able to explain what he saw. There was a dark liquid sprayed over the walls and the bed, as though something had exploded and the source had been laying on the bed. At first he thought it was blood, but then he recognized the fluid was far too thick, and it was a dark green.

He rubbed the fluid between his finger and thumb. Upon close inspection, he noticed there was a shiny, silvery grain in the green slime. He took a fast sniff of it. The smell was fishy. To say Jeremy was concerned would be an understatement, and extreme understatement. He scanned the room for any hints which would shed light on what had happened. There was no obvious signs of what could have caused the explosion of green goo, and there was no sign of a struggle. It was when he had went to the bedroom closet that he noticed that he looked back and spotted something so giving he had no idea how he could have missed it. There were foot prints on the floor stamped out from the green ick.

The prints led out of the bedroom, through the hallway, out the back door. He found tracks in the mud, an area which looked like there had been a scuffle in the mud, and the tracks went on beyond that. "Samantha!" As he followed the foot prints in the mud, he found a night gown laying beneath a shrub and the panic escalated; he could now only fear the worse. "Samantha!" Jeremy began to run, following the muddy prints until he saw her.

Samantha was standing in the nude by the edge of the lake. Jeremy felt a rush of relief when he saw her there; she was not dead. "Whew, there you are. What is going on Sam?"

She did not turn; she only faced the lake. He took steps towards her, "Sam? Hey, what's happened here? What happened to Erin?" Still she only faced the lake, stoic. "Samantha? You alright?" He was close enough to her to reach out and touch her shoulder.

Two bright yellow eyes with vertical slits were the only things he could see. She smiled, maybe, if it could be called a smile, and a pair of crocodilian eye lids blinked at him. He withdrew his hand, "Samantha? Are you alright?"

She turned back to the lake and walked headlong into it. After she was waste deep, she dove into the water and went under, out of sight. Her head came up and her body arched as she went back under, and thrown to the sky, an enormous fish tail flipped and fanned as she disappeared forever.

Jeremy stepped backwards slowly, unable to understand what he had seen. From above, in the air, unheard to him, the soft voice of Rod Serling spoke, "A single man on a lonely beach trapped with a memory he would never be able to comprehend and another trapped with a regret he could never escape. All that glitters is not gold, even more so when shining in the Twilight Zone."


End file.
